Pacing the Cage
by Gabi-hime
Summary: Impotence and Experience. Severus Snape, year five.


Pacing the Cage  
  
A Piece for the Days of Wands and Roses Continuity  
  
By Gabi (pinkfluffynetyahoo.com)  
  
---  
  
There was something on his mind. She could always tell there was something on his mind because his brow wrinkled in a particular way and he screwed his mouth down at the corners, as if he were trying to contort his entire face into the most sullenly unpleasant shape he could manage. She knew very well that he thought it was forbidding, and not sullen, and some years in the future easily cowed students would be quick to agree with him. Now though, now he only looked like he'd been sucking lemons and he kept fiddling with his tie, tightening it again and again, leaving it crooked, worrying her that he was attempting to lynch himself. Even now she wanted to step in front of him, falling into his pacing, going backwards one step at a time because goodness knows he would not stop for her, and nor did she expect it, hands fluttering to his collar to set his tie right, to straighten it, to settle him at all, but then his footfalls were endless, and she couldn't get a step in edgewise as he paced up and down the wall, stopping only to toe a grimy crevice in the floor from time to time with the toe of his now scuffed shoe.  
  
Someone would answer for those scuffed shoes. It didn't take her many guesses to figure out who that someone was. She'd polish his shoes right, the way he liked them, and then leave them sitting by the portal to his common room. She'd settle down there to wait for him, bottom getting damp because there was always so much condensation -- dripping -- in the dungeon, hoping that when he did come back he wouldn't have a split lip from talking back too freely to either Sirius Black or James Potter. They both outweighed and outclassed her Severus. They were both active boys, too active most of the time, it seemed, and the most activity he got was hunching bad temperedly over his cauldron, and really, they both knew this. Sirius had told her so.  
  
"Addie, pet," he had said, "I know that it's never really a fair fight, you know, but once he gets going, it's very hard not to hit him. You understand. There's a good girl."  
  
And then he'd been off again, tousling her hair and running to play squire to James Potter, and she was a good girl, and she did understand. She had understood it very well the day it had all gone too far and she'd gone to bed nursing a sickly green-blue-black bruise -- a mark of affection -- a mark of something. Be a good girl, Addie. You understand. He didn't mean to hit you, only it was very hard not to. And besides. He was sorry later. He was always sorry later.  
  
Even if he never said a word. She knew he didn't say them not because he didn't care, but because he didn't know that he did, didn't know how much, but she could read it sometimes at the corners of his eyes when he was talking to her and he didn't think she was paying attention, when he said tersely:  
  
"Adelaide, attend."  
  
She knew he didn't say those kinds of words to her because he didn't know how to say them, couldn't have forced them out if he wanted, couldn't have forced them past his pride, past himself.  
  
That was all right. She loved him because he was himself.  
  
Anything else, well, anything else just wouldn't have been her Severus.  
  
With all the pacing he had been doing this year in the potions studio, he was sure to wear out the soles in his shoes, either that or wear a trough into the flagstones down to the foundations. She wondered if his aunt would buy him new shoes if he did manage to wear his out. She supposed that Miss Pincilla would have to. Even she couldn't deny the necessity of shoes. She hoped that he wouldn't have to fight her over the bells again. That always made him irritable, and then she'd be soothing him over it for weeks.  
  
No Severus, I don't know what she was thinking. Of course black suits you best. Yes, I agree that bells are ridiculous. Yes, I know that they would never let you hear the end of it. Yes, Severus, of course I'll help you take the bells out of the stitching. I've already started, even. Yes, Severus, I love you.  
  
That last bit -- she didn't say that. She put it all into the turn of his name, easy and gentle, the v soft, her teeth barely brushing her bottom lip as she wound out his name and curled it close to her chest every time she said it, like it was a scarf to keep herself warm. She never said I love you. She said Severus, please don't walk so quickly, I can't keep up, or Severus, thank you, or Severus, let's climb to the top of the hill to watch the snow fall. She never said I love you, but it was there all the same, and in a way that it was easier for him to accept.  
  
She was always doing her best to accommodate him. It was the least she could do, considering. He needed it, the love and the accommodation. He needed it badly and he got it from no one else, so the least she could do was offer her own even if it would not have been his first choice. She took a deep breath. If he kept at the pacing, kept at the neck-tie tightening, he was sure to strangle himself shortly if no one intervened. Of course, there was no one on hand to distract him other than herself, even though she knew getting between Severus and his pacing was nigh on suicide when he was in one of his tempers. Still, she knew it would be the best for him if she could quell the uncertain rage inside him now, before it got out of hand, before he did something that he would regret later, or she at least would relate later, and the boys would retaliate in kind, bruised lips, split knuckles, and black eyes abounding. If she could settle him, then she had to try. If she did not, then it did not hurt her -- probably would not hurt her -- no, that had been only one time, and he had been so sorry afterwards. She took a deep breath, smiled peacefully -- a lamb who knew her cause and duty -- and then stepped boldly out in front of the train.  
  
He almost paced right into her, through her, over her, but -- credit given where credit was due -- he did stop in time, bracing one foot behind the other and catching his weight against the high cabinet frame to do it. Slumped forward, before he recovered, his beetle black eyes were curiously at her level and his nose had bumped hers without apology, and perhaps she might have gasped, eyes dilating from the unexpected contact, had time for her not virtually stopped, tangled in the lank hair that swung forward with the momentum, over his collar and into her face. He smelled of formaldehyde and hen's teeth and a thousand other things that no one wanted to smell, but he was there and his eyes were sharp like bits of something broken -- dark, smoky glass -- and he pinned her open like a butterfly with one reckless glance.  
  
She wanted so much to wrap her arms around his neck and smooth his hair and let him lean against her chest, wanted all his frustration to strain against her until it broke and he was left boneless and humorless, quiet as death, and she had no way to tell him this, no way to explain it in words that he would listen to or understand, no word she could ever offer him outside his own name gone all soft in the middle.  
  
"Severus," she began, but before she could string any more words together he had backpedaled crossing his bony arms one over the other and scrutinizing her in a way she was entirely unused to, "Is there something bothering you?"  
  
"What do you care?" he snapped, sharp like pins in a cushion all done in backwards so they stuck out instead of in.  
  
She drew her hands to her chest as she had a habit of doing whenever he looked at her directly, "I'm worried about you -- "  
  
"Worried?" he practically snarled, "Worried. How appropriate -- worried about poor, pitiful, friendless Severus Snape. I don't want your pity, Adelaide."  
  
If she had been a lesser girl, or if she had not had such extensive dealings with the angry young man in front of her, then she might have fallen back a step, but she knew what his worst was, and he'd already done it to her, and she'd found that she hadn't minded it too terribly. It was a small price to pay for -- what? Being cherished? She had a feeling that she spelled that word more liberally than most. But still, now, he was upset with her and she did not know why and that was troubling. He was often upset, but mostly at other people; that was infinitely easier to handle.  
  
"Pity? I don't know what you're talking about," she murmured nervously, lacing and unlacing her fingers, "I don't pity you, Severus."  
  
"Do you think I am stupid and also deaf, Adelaide? Do not insult my intelligence. Everyone is talking about it. Everyone is always talking about it. I will not be made a fool of," he was shaking now, rage ill suppressed, lips a bitter white line all marked over patchy because he bit his lips when he was nervous, when he was upset, and she ducked her head as he spat the words out at her because she was unused to so much attention from him at once, so much and so raw and so angry.  
  
"Severus," she pleaded, eyes slowly climbing the craigs of his face, sneaking around the curve of his ear, anything to avoid his eyes that glittered like gypsum, hard and jagged, "Everyone is always talking about what? I don't understand -- "  
  
"Don't act as if you don't know," he snapped, seizing her shoulder and turning her sharp, bony fingers digging so it felt like he would strike the bone, thumb at her clavicle pressing hard, up, as if he might pop the truth from her the way he popped the eyeballs out of skinks for their lessons, only he didn't want the truth, he wanted what he had already decided. He wanted what he thought he knew, "You're not stupid."  
  
"Severus, please," she begged, and he pressed her back against the row of cabinets, trapping her on one side with his hand splayed out against the wood near her ear, and framing the other with his sharp, angular shoulder.  
  
"Pity. Pity, Adelaide, pity," his voice was raspy, rubbed open, raw like meat scoured from bones, "I hear them say it every day, whispering it just loud enough so they're sure that I hear. I'm not stupid, either. I don't need anyone. I certainly don't need you. I'm not the solution to your damned idiotic need to martyr yourself. I am not the pat on your back you give yourself to feel all noble and self-sacrificing, St. Adelaide. I don't want your pity."  
  
And her mouth turned cold and slick, sick with the knowledge that was climbing fast and hard inside her and she could taste the salt under her tongue like it was the only thing she'd ever know, and her stomach bunched and quivered, lurching drunkenly as it stumbled over those words, 'Don't need you -- ' and everything he said afterwards fell off into silence in her mind as she fought back the salt in her eyes that stung like brine.  
  
"I don't pity you, Severus," she sobbed, fingers tangling up in his collar as he pressed her harder against the cabinet, and her whole world was formaldehyde and hen's teeth and beetle eyes and toad mucus and dragon filings and she couldn't even think, "I swear I don't -- "  
  
"Then why?," he gasped out as he shook her, and the little crystals in her hair rattled against the wood, "Why stay with me when you get nothing, less than nothing because I am wretched to you, I am vile and you get nothing -- you stupid, stupid idiot, little bird, little bird. If not pity, THEN WHY?"  
  
"Because, Severus," she choked, swallowing down the bile and thickness in her throat that was rising like silk -- waffle-stitched linen deep inside her, " -- I love you."  
  
And then it was done and she had said it and he would laugh at her, bitter and needle high, like chestnuts under her feet, but then the laugh didn't come, and he was frozen, holding her there, pinned between the wall and all his angles, sharp and bony and never, ever apologetic. Adelaide, this is who I am.  
  
The silence hung heavy and strained between them, pulled taunt and bare and she struggled against it hard, fighting the tears, but then she could bear it no longer and threw her arms around him, sobbing into his neck, into the formaldehyde and hen's teeth and toad mucus and that lank hair that she loved so much, because even if he laughed at her, high and sharp, pin cushion turned out and not in, he was still her Severus, and no one could take that away from her -- certainly not him.  
  
But then there was an awkward hand on her back, as if he wasn't sure what to do with himself, what to do with the two of them, and then his other hand was on the top of her head -- patting it of all things -- and was he, was he really holding her, pressed tight against the cabinets, her still so sobby and slimy, and her eyes found their way up his collar slowly, carefully, rounding his ear and then she rocked back, caught low and sharp by the look in his eyes, unguarded, naked, narrowed, confused, was he -- was he going to cry?  
  
His eyes in hers pinned her backward again, just as surely as if he'd speared them on hot knives, and his arm tightened around her waist and she was forced to stretch on her toes, arches strained in her shoes, strained so she thought she might just snap the buckles off, and his other hand was around her wrist, pressing it firmly behind her ear with an open palm, long fingers locked tight, spreading her like a dissection specimen against the cabinet.  
  
And then he leaned close to her, jerkily, as if he was not in full control over his motor responses, and her breath caught deep inside her because JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH HE WAS GOING TO KISS HER.  
  
But then it all fell away like ash crumbling against her fingers, and her jerked back sharply, letting her go all at once so she slumped against the cabinet for support, her knees weak, her breathing shaky and uneven. He took a step backwards, eyes running spasmodically over her for a bare moment, directionless and arrhythmic -- but then he turned his head sharply and looked away.  
  
"I'm sorry, Addie," was all he said, soft almost so she couldn't hear him, "I won't force you again."  
  
And then he gathered his things without looking at her and left, leaving her still struck against the wall like a fragile little bird.  
  
Sometimes, in the corners of his eyes, or when he looked at her like that --  
  
His voice came unexpected, and from halfway up the stairs, she judged, with just the slightest aggravated edge to it.  
  
"Adelaide," he took time with her name, took care with it, all the care that he could give her, all the care that he knew how, "Attend."  
  



End file.
